As you can see, it’s been a few days since I posted anything. Well, a funny little thing happened. After two weeks of taking it easy after my engagement, and concentrating on telling friends personally by phone (which is hard when some live in the States and others in Australia), I decided to take the plunge and begin looking for wedding ideas and inspiration on the internet. Within an hour I got TOTALLY SUCKED IN and then I began drowning, drowning, drowning in all the details the ideas the costs the correspondence the blogs and only now am I coming back up for air after what must have been 50 hours of research. During those 50 hours of research, I read that a normal bride spends about 200 hours of research on her wedding. Given I’ve done 50, and have about 450 more days to go, I’d say that logic tells you, I’m not your normal bride.
So, yes, I am obsessing. But at the same time, I have NO resources to help me enjoy this process here. No printer to save the photos I like. NO wedding magazines to peruse and cut pictures from. No girlfriends or zinfandel to keep me company as I make excruciatingly small decisions regarding font color on the invitations. So spare me.
I’ve realized quickly, that I need a way to organize all these ideas and research or I will go mad. Planning a wedding from West Africa is not easy. So I am going to sort out ALL the teeny-tiny wedding details on a blog. However, I’ve decided I want to keep Manolos as my personal blog – with stories of my life, rather than stories of linen thread count. Also, there is so much more to say regarding Mali and West Africa, I am not finished telling these stories to you all. So although I will definitely be talking about the wedding, I have set up a separate BORING but TOTALLY EXCITING FOR ME blog, (www.chicagowedsite.wordpress.com) where I can organize all the ideas that have been storming my brain a mile a minute, and use that internet blog as my wedding scrapbook – since I don’t have a scrapbook or even a book.
It’s pretty ironic that I was once THAT girl who would buy bridal magazines for fun, just to imagine what the day might be like – and now that I am engaged, not only do I NOT have ONE magazine available to me within a 2000 mile radius, or one wedding planner, but my fiance already has received a Groom’s guide to wedding planning! 
One thing is for sure though – the theme: “Urban chic, African lounge, Polka party.”
Filed under: travel | Tagged: africa, african wedding, wedding
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Shame on your sister for not overnighting some magazines to you LOL
Congrats again! I got married in June and was fairly wedding obsessed for the year leading up to my wedding. The two sites I used the most were Weddingbee.com (for inspiration) and Weddingwire.com (you can keep track of gifts received and thank yous sent, as well as use their free seating plan software).
Enjoy the planning! It’s a crazy time but you’ll probably be sad when it’s over (I know I was).
Hey – it’s just because Martha takes some time to get to Mali. Give Martha time- she’ll get there.
I LOVE the theme!!
Planning a wedding is difficult enough, let alone having to do it from Africa.
I love your site. It looks great and is so much fun!
Enjoy everything about the process.
There are lots and lots of ideas out there on the web- I actually find it much more inspirational than magazines.
Also, another idea for keeping track of ideas is after savnig a picture, uploading it to an online wedding album (I use picasa) and then as a caption linking back to where the idea came from. The blog is another way, but I find that I can’t keep the blog up to date with the many ideas out there! You can also use delicious to save links and tag them (invitation, dress, caterer, etc).
Good luck! Your theme ideas sound fabulous and fun!
Congratulations on your engagement!!!